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President Obama’s visit to the center of a national energy-storage-research effort Friday highlights an overlooked tool in the administration’s push for renewable energy: batteries…

Many in the energy community believe we need a better battery. That’s the focus of the work under way at the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) at Argonne National Laboratory in suburban Chicago ‚Äì and the reason for Mr. Obama’s visit. The president is expected to urge Congress to provide an additional $2 billion for battery and transportation research meant to end the nation’s use of oil. Better batteries would not only extend the range of electric-only and hybrid cars, they would also make the nation’s electric grid a lot “greener,” capable of storing energy from wind turbines and solar panels on a large scale and then delivering it when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining.